Footnotes:

John 5:17The work of God was never the breach of the Sabbath: but the works of Christ are the works of the Father, both because they are one God, and also because the Father doth not work but in the Son.

17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.”

Footnotes:

5:17Sabbath observance (Jn 5:10) was based on God’s resting on the seventh day (cf. Gn 2:2–3; Ex 20:11). Philo and some rabbis insisted that God’s providence remains active on the sabbath, keeping all things in existence, giving life in birth and taking it away in death. Other rabbis taught that God rested from creating, but not from judging (= ruling, governing). Jesus here claims the same authority to work as the Father, and, in the discourse that follows, the same divine prerogatives: power over life and death (Jn 5:21, 24–26) and judgment (Jn 5:22, 27).